Dragon and Dungeon Magazines - Do You Miss Them?

I was recently reading the Paizo blog posts by Lisa Stevens about Paizo's history. One of the blog posts discussed the ending of Paizo's licence for Dragon and Dungeon magazine, whose last issues were 5 years ago now (September 2007).

I still remember that announcement quite clearly. I was shocked that WotC had decided to take the licence back from Paizo as I thought that they were doing a great job of them. I was appalled when I found out that, not only were they taking back the licences, they were going to exist purely in a digital format only.

I remember being so upset about it that I even talked about it with my wife, who has no interest in RPG's whatsoever. Normally I don't talk gaming with her at all, but this felt like such a significant event that I felt like I needed to talk to someone about it.

Looking back on it now, it is still quite a sad memory for me. Dragon and Dungeon magazines are definitely in my memories when I think of my D&D history. Even when I wasn't playing for several years I still bought Dragon magazine to read. I still use Dungeon magazine adventures in my campaigns now.

I think what I miss most is just reading about D&D stuff on a regular basis. I have a whole heap of D&D books, and I also regularly visit the EN World forums, but it just isn't the same thing for me.

To top it off, the digital versions of Dragon and Dungeon never eventuated. Yes, there are D&D articles and adventures publised via D&D Insider, but it really isn't the same thing as a hard copy magazine (or even a compiled soft copy magazine for that matter). Yes, there are things like Kobold Quarterly that fill a similar niche, but to me it still isn't quite the same.

So, now that we're 5 years on, what do you think about Dragon and Dungeon magazine? Do you miss them? Are you still angry or sad that WotC canned them or is it just a changing of the times for you?

Olaf the Stout

Finished running my group through the SCAP, now I'm running them through the AoW AP